Oven-baked individual French toasts

This past Easter was a bit of a rush job.  We'd just gotten back from a quick road trip to Boston and then dashed off to attend a friend's wedding festivities the day before Easter Sunday.  I didn't have time to plan anything resembling an elaborate Easter breakfast or brunch.  Instead, I tried a little time-saver.  I oven-baked French toast for breakfast.

Skip pan-frying and bake your French toast in the oven

I saw this idea on Martha Bakes.  I particularly like it because we're not talking about a casserole (which generally makes more than we need) but baking individual French toasts so you can make as many or as few as you want.  You skip the time, mess, and calories of pan-frying.  I don't use a ton of oil when I cook my French toast so, for me, the appeal was more in the time-savings.  You put the French toast in the oven and have some free time to prep other things for your breakfast.  In my case, I used the time to make some drinks.

I took out the last two slices of my homemade white bread from the freezer to use for this recipe. Those two mushroom-looking slices you see on the left (photo above) are mine.  I supplemented with other bakery white bread.  Much like those baked eggs-in-a-hole, I really like letting the oven do most of the work.

So, taste.  Here's the thing.  I found that the oven-baked French toast is not as moist and rich as regular French toast.  That shouldn't come as a huge surprise but I better point it out.  You're omitting some fat and while pan-frying on the stove-top quickly seals everything in, the oven tends to dry things out.

It's important to be mindful of the baking time.  The toasts bake in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes, then it needs a couple of minutes on broil to give it some color on top.  The timing thing is a lesson I learned; trying to buy a few extra minutes on a busy morning, I left my French toast in the oven a couple minutes longer than I should have so it dried out more than it needed to.  I will certainly be more diligent next time.

So while baking French toast might not be quite as good as frying them, I think that the benefits make it worth the compromise sometimes.  It's certainly easier on the cook!  I'm definitely willing to try this again soon.